14-Year-Old Pretends Hands Are Guns and is Suspended Being Told “You’re Done for the Year”

Marysville Middle School in Washington State has suspended a teen for the rest of the school year because he was pretending his hands were guns and he was “shooting” classmates with his hands.  Hunter Lance was playing a game with his friends and he was not using a toy gun or even a pastry gun.

According to Komonews the mother of the boy, Rondi Lance, believes the school’s actions were extreme and the 2 week suspension is a complete overreaction.

“I think it was just ‘bang’, ‘bang’ with your hand, or maybe a machine gun with your arm,” said Rondi Lance. “I am not questioning the suspension or the discipline actions. Definitely they should’ve done what they did, but I think it’s really extreme.” “Two weeks’ (suspension). That’s it,” she continued. “You don’t get to clean out your locker, you don’t get to finalize your grades. It’s like, ‘get your stuff, you’re done for the year.’ Nobody has taken any steps to talk to him and explain to him how serious this is and why we have to do this.”

The school has released very few details about the incident and was not available for questions, but they have stated that Hunter was only being disciplined because he was misbehaving and had a history of issues at the school.  So we are supposed to believe that this has nothing to do with the “gun debate”.

This behavior supposedly frightened some of the children as Hunter’s game included keeping a “kill count”.  While the mother of the boy admits his behavior might have been inappropriate, it’s hard to justify giving the boy a 2 week suspension and the rest of the school year off because he was doing something that most of us have probably done ourselves when we were younger.

Rondi Lance expressed her frustration that the school did not discipline any of the other classmates who were playing this pretend shooting game as well but gave Hunter the axe.

“It doesn’t make sense to me. How can they cut him off at the knees and be done with him?” she asked.

It seems like every other day another story comes out about a school taking ridiculous actions after a kid is just being a kid.  I understand they want to make sure another school shooting doesn’t take place, but stories like this are hardly reason for kicking a student out of school for the rest of the year and just make it seem more like an agenda against guns in general.